


Alone Together

by joypendants



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, its cute, rated t for LANGUAGE just to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joypendants/pseuds/joypendants
Summary: While looking for a place to spend the night, a telescope is discovered and some stargazing and slight existentialism ensue.





	Alone Together

**Author's Note:**

> my beautiful partner was actually the one to come up with the idea for this, and i was just the one to write it! enjoy some gratuitous fluff and stargazing bc tbh its the ben and arvo content we deserve

The house was rickety and abandoned, as everything was these days: dirty broken glass glinted behind boards that had been shoddily nailed across windows oh-so long ago. Each house was a testament to what had been before, and what would never again be; they were skeletons that stood sentinel, shattered-glass eyes staring out over a now-abandoned landscape, the birds in their rafters ghosts of a past that seemed so very distant flitting amongst their bones.

Inside this gutted corpse of architecture, a door creaked open, rusted hinges letting their pain be known. The sound felt too loud in the otherwise relative silence, and Ben instinctively flinched, hand tightening about the crowbar that had become a makeshift weapon. Knuckles white, he held his breath for a moment, shoulders tense as he strained to listen for any movement, any sound that could indicate imminent danger––

At a hand coming to touch his arm, Ben jumped, a strangled ‘holy shit’ falling from his lips, muscles tensed as he felt his heart skip a beat, (two, three), breath held as he whirled about and tired blue eyes fall to a familiar figure before him.

“...Sorry,” Arvo said sheepishly, hand still outstretched for a moment before it fell back to his side, a slight amused smile curving his lips. “Did not mean to, ah, have scare you?” Despite his apologetic words, however, a faint mirth was evident about delicate features.

Ben shook his head, breath leaving him in a whoosh. “Oh, it’s fine,” he responded, nervous laughter pulling itself from his chest as the tension drained from his lanky frame. “It’s– Uh, I didn’t hear you...come up behind me,” he finished lamely, glancing over his shoulder to the open door behind him. “I was distracted, I guess.” 

“Are you having found anything?” Arvo asks, hand once again reaching out to touch Ben’s arm, the touch this time gentle, fingers brushing over the other boy’s arm a brief moment.

Peering into the room, Ben quickly took in the contents: broken window, upturned desk, what might have once been a bookshelf, and a shredded chair. The remnants of curtains lay on the ground by what appeared to be a pile long-gone-cold ashes, scattered about the room, half-burned books sitting amongst them. A study, maybe, Ben thought. Whatever it once was, though, didn’t matter. It was a ghost of the past, and it held no bearing on the present. 

“Nothin’ in there,” Ben stated, turning back to face Arvo. “We can look through it more later, I think?” he suggested, throwing half a glance over his shoulder once again as the door creaked in protest as it was pushed by a draft. “Um, should we–– I think that’s the last of the rooms down here, right?” As he spoke, Ben gestured vaguely about the dimly-lit hallway that the two of them currently stood in.

“Right!” Arvo responded, tone rather light despite their drab surroundings. “Come, we are having to look around the upstairs, make sure it is safe!” 

A few minutes and several creaky doors later, the two found themselves standing in what appeared to be a forgotten child’s bedroom, walls painted dark, spotted with long-since fading stars. The bedframe still stood, the rotted mattress on the floor beside it –– the mattress itself looked to be stained with something dark. Blood, Ben absently though, and part of him was slightly sad at how desensitized he had become to such a thing. Now, it was commonplace. Now, if was more surprising if he didn’t see bloodstains in what had once been someone’s home.

“Look!” Arvo tugged at Ben’s arm, gesturing excitedly towards the grimy windows. “Look, Benny, this is good––” 

Squinting in the direction indicated, it took Ben a moment to realize what he was looking at. Standing before the windowsill, a few shades shy of naught but a silhouette against filthy windows, stood a telescope. Dustmotes danced through the air around it, illuminated by the sunlight that managed to filter through layers of grime, and Ben could almost laugh at the sheer beauty of such a simple thing. 

Having crossed the room to get a closer look at the telescope, the sheer joy was evident on Arvo’s face, the bespectacled boy all but beaming at Ben. “Here, here, come, have look at this, Benny,” Arvo was saying, gesturing for Ben to join him. “I have not seen one of this in so long. Ah, this is amazing!” As he was speaking, Arvo was picking up the telescope, turning it about as he delicate wiped away the dust and grime that had settled over it during disuse. 

As Arvo raised the telescope to his eye, peering through it, Ben crossed the room to get a closer look at the object in question. In doing so, Ben found himself in close proximity to the telescope’s lense. Behind the telescope, he heard Arvo giggle, and Ben couldn’t help himself: a smile curved his own chapped lips as he shook his head, a finger gently pushing the offending object down. 

“I don’t think that’s the intended use, y’know,” Ben said, mock seriousness failing to hide the mirth that bubbled beneath. “I think that’s actually meant for, um, looking at the stars.” A smile cracked his (failed) attempt at a façade, tired eyes lighting up.

“Yes, yes, I am knowing this,” Arvo responded, spidery fingers fidgeting with the telescope held in his grasp as small giggles bubbled forth from his throat. “There is no needing you to tease, shh!” Still, his joyful smile was in place, head tilting to the side a moment. “...Benny,” he added, question already evident in his very tone, “maybe we should be spending the night here?” 

Ben had never been able to say no to Arvo, especially when the other boy looked so happy.

Several hours later, the sun had since set, the moon starting to rise in the slowly darkening sky. The sunset faded like a bruise: reds bled into purples, which faded into darker shades. As the stars started to peek out, speckling the deepening purple with little pinpricks of light, Ben pushed open the window, carefully climbing out the second-storey window onto the waiting roof below. 

Stretching slightly, staring up at the endless expanse of sky above him, Ben took a deep breath. Everything was so still, so very, very still: once, it had struck him as eerie. Now, he thought of it as peaceful.

“––will be able to see everything,” Arvo was saying as he attempting to follow suit, clambering out the window to join Ben. “Is very clear, now, since there is being not a lot of light.” As the smaller boy spoke, Ben idly offered him a hand, supporting Arvo as he struggled a moment with getting his leg brace-clad leg up over the windowsill. “So, it is – thank you – very clear, yes?” Now able to join Ben properly on the roof, Arvo gave the taller boy a wide smile. “It is going to be nice, I think!”

The sight of Arvo’s smile warmed Ben’s heart, a comfortable feeling settling itself in his chest. “I think so too,” he agreed, carefully sitting himself down on the roof. “I think it’s going to be really nice.”

The sky, now dappled with stars, the half-moon risen to her full glory, had never been clearer. Since the world had ended, nature had lain claim to the world around her, and the sky was no exception. With no other light vying for attention, the stars were allowed to shine to their full glory, and it never ceased to amaze Ben how many there were. There were more than he could ever imagine, and, with the naked eye, he could see where the Milky Way spilled itself across the sky, a beautiful torrent––

“And look!” Arvo was speaking once again, voice hushed with excitement. “There, can you see?” He was peering through the telescope, gesturing excitedly to something in the sky. “It is being a planet, I think?” 

Pushing himself to his feet from where he had been sitting atop the roof, Ben carefully walked a little closer to where Arvo had set himself up, staring up at the stars through the telescope. While the item itself seemed to be of a rather cheap make, the way that Arvo was reacting –– it might as well have been a priceless treasure. 

“Where?” Ben asked, attempting to follow Arvo’s gaze, squinting up at the star-speckled sky. To Ben, they all looked the same: beautiful, but distant, mysterious entities that watched over the world down below. The moon’s helpers, his mother had once told him, and for a good portion of his childhood, Ben had wondered if the stars were like angels. Were they celestial bodies that watched over the goings-on below them, protecting the good and punishing the bad?

Removing the telescope from his eye, Arvo caught Ben’s hand in his, pressing the telescope into his palm. “Look,” the dark-haired boy said, gesturing for Ben to peer through the telescope. “I will show, yes?” 

With Arvo smiling at him like that, Ben couldn’t have disagreed even if he wanted to.

Pressing the telescope to his eye, Ben peered through it, a quiet, awe-filled ‘wow’ leaving him as he found himself more clearly seeing the endless sky above him. While the telescope might have been a rather cheap piece of equipment, nothing too high-powered, it more than did the job: the stars had never looked closer, and for a fleeting moment, Ben wondered if he could reach out and touch them.

“Here, look,” Arvo was saying as he gently tugged on Ben’s arm, turning the taller boy about to face the right direction. “Are you able to seeing it?” he asked, excitement evident in his tone. “The red-looking star –– you can seeing?” At Ben’s nod, Arvo began to speak again, words all but tripping over each other in the smaller boy’s delight. “It is a planet, actually, not star, and that is why the colour is being like this! And––”

As Arvo spoke, going on about the planet in question that he had seen, telling Ben a series of science fun-facts about it, Ben found himself staring around the huge expanse of space. The stars seemed so close and yet so far away, the moon hanging heavy in the sky above. It was all so large: the blackness in between the stars –– how far did it stretch? How far could one go before they reached the end of the universe?

At a lull in Arvo’s sharing of fun-facts (God, Ben could listen to him talk all day, honestly; one of the best sounds in the world, his opinion, was Arvo talking about something he was interested in), Ben turned slightly to hand the telescope back to Arvo. “...The night sky’s gorgeous,” Ben commented, feeling the brush of Arvo’s cold fingers against his. “I still can’t believe there’s so many stars out there…,” he added, moving to sit back down on the roof, this time a little closer to Arvo. “I wonder how many of them are suns like ours?”

“Many are bigger than our sun is,” Arvo said, voice a little absent as he went back to studying the cosmos above the duo. “But if you are meaning they have many planets like this, then not many, so far.” 

Ben hummed in response, though the sound seemed to be swallowed by the velvet darkness that had descended over the earth, leaving the two in a comfortable silence a moment. “...How big is space?” Ben asked, mind wandering back to the void that hung between the twinkling stars. “Like, how far does it go on for?”

There was a moment before Arvo responded, still staring up at the stars. “I think is slowly expanding, actually,” he said, finally lowering the telescope to look at Ben. “It is being very large, and getting bigger still.” 

“D’you ever think of if there’s, like, I don’t know, other life? I mean, other people out there?” Ben asked, shifting to sit cross-legged, elbow on his knee, chin resting on the palm of his hand. “I mean, if it’s so big…”

“...Are you meaning something like aliens?” Arvo’s brows arched as he spoke, faint smile playing about his lips as Ben nodded. In the dim light of the moon, it was rather hard to see his expression, but Ben knew Arvo like the back of his hand. (Sometimes, Ben wondered if he knew Arvo better than he knew himself. The thought, in a way, was almost comforting.) 

“If you are talking about aliens, then? I am thinking probably there is something out there,” Arvo continued, faint amusement evident in his very tone. “But since this universe is being constantly growing, very, ah, expensive–– No, expansive, yes, this is the word, it is very not possible that we would ever meet, maybe.” 

As Ben opened his mouth to respond, however, Arvo began to speak again, toying with the telescope that he held in skeletal-esque hands. “...Plus, Benny, do you not think that we are having many problems already?” he said, laughter bubbling up and touching his words. “We do already have the, um, dead who is walking around – are you really think that we are need to add ‘aliens’ to this?” 

“...Oh,” Ben said, though he couldn’t help but smile a bit. “I mean, when you put it like that––”

Arvo snorted, smile now more evident as he came to sit next to Ben. “Anyway, I think that if I were to be an alien, I would not want to come here, either,” Arvo said, leaning back on his hands as he spoke. “I do not think I would be want to visit us either? World is having ended, after all.”

Ben laughed at that comment, shaking his head, stray hair flopping onto his forehead as he did so. “That’s–– You know what, that’s fair, actually,” he responded, tilting his head back and letting out a deep sigh. “Earth does kinda suck now, huh?” 

“...Geez, this got depressing very fast, yes?” Arvo sighed, though a small laugh followed shortly thereafter. (Another of the best sounds in the world, Ben thought to himself. Arvo’s laughter always made his chest feel warm – made his heart feel lighter.) 

“Kind of,” Ben agreed, shrugging, as he found himself staring back up at the stars. Though beautiful, there was something kind of sad about them, he thought: they were so far away, so untouchable, hovering above a world that they could never really be apart of. The cosmos, while infinite, seemed so very lonely now. To hang suspended in space, in infinite darkness, infinity at one’s fingertips: while they were beautiful, Ben did not envy the stars. 

Drawing a deep breath, the warm late-summer air tasting of plants and the heady scent of wildflowers, Ben shook his head. “So, we’re all alone down here, huh?” he commented, quiet voice almost lost in the night. That, in a way, made the perceived solitude feel almost complete: perhaps in a way, they were like the stars, floating in the void that seemed to tie the universe together. Perhaps, in a way, they were more similar to the stars that one might think. 

“Maybe,” Arvo replied, and Ben felt Arvo’s cold hand brush against his calloused one a moment before Arvo laced their fingers together. “But at least we are alone together, yes?” Arvo gentle squeezed Ben’s hand as he spoke, and Ben could all but hear the smile in his very words. 

Casting a quick glance in the other boy’s direction, Ben caught the brilliant smile that curved Arvo’s lips, evident even in the silvery light of the moon. As he caught Arvo’s gaze for the briefest of moments, Ben felt his heart skip a beat, pink rising to tan cheeks. Arvo was the one to look away first, free hand fidgeting with the telescope that had been set to rest on his lap, and, after a moment, unlaced their fingers to searching the stars with the telescope.

While Arvo admired the stars, Ben found himself sitting in silence, admiring Arvo. His heart still felt as if it was beating a little faster than normal, and he could still feel the phantom sensation of Arvo’s hand in his. Ben found himself smiling at the thought, ducking his head as warmth bubbled up in his chest, heart feeling as if it was swelling. The overwhelming urge to laugh had overcome him: it was as if his body could not hold all the happiness, all the joy and love he was feeling, but he resisted. 

At least we are alone together.

As Ben looked at Arvo, the other boy still lost in his observation of the stars, Ben felt so very blessed. If the two of them were like stars, and, certainly, one could liken their lot in life to that of stars suspended in the endless void, what was the likelihood of the two of them meeting? What was the likelihood that they, two drifting stars, were to ever have crossed paths? Slim to none, some would say, and yet here they sat, inches away from each other despite all the odds stacked against them.

It was a slight sigh from Arvo, the other boy shifting on the shingled roof that caught Ben’s attention. Still peering through the telescope, Arvo looked so very focused, Ben thought, lost somewhere amongst the void and stars above them. (In the moonlight, features painted silver, he reminded Ben of something you might see in a fairytale: a creature, blessed by the moon, skin like ivory, dotted with little freckles that could be constellations in some faraway land.) 

Despite Arvo’s attention being on the sky above, he still moved closer to Ben, leaning against the taller boy, head resting on Ben’s shoulder. Arvo was still stargazing, still focused on the beauty that was above the two of them, a quiet sigh of contentment escaping his slender frame. Carefully, ever so carefully, Ben put an arm about Arvo’s waist, resting his cheek against the smaller boy’s head. (This, Ben thought, this just might be what home felt like.)

Ben did not envy the stars, nor would he ever, he thought. To be so beautiful – what was the point of it if one were to be all alone? To drift in the infinite cosmos, isolated and alone, must be some kind of curse; maybe that’s what Hell truly was. 

Perhaps he too had once been akin to the stars: drifting, isolated, lost in the cosmos, but he had been luckier than most. Despite everything, despite the mistakes and fuck-ups he had made along the way, somehow, he had managed to get this one thing right. Somehow, he had managed to find someone to love and to share in his life with. Someone with whom he could be alone together.

**Author's Note:**

> 'this will be under 1000 words' i said and now its over 3000 idk how to be concise


End file.
